I Was Invincible
by Quietharm
Summary: A storm is brewing as a premonition on the fate of the youkai is given by a fabled Seer in feudal Japan. Inuyasha, Kagome, and the rest of the gang suddenly find themselves embroiled in a war for the future of all youkai. Sess & Rin too.
1. Schoolhouse Blues

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I Was Invincible: Chapter 1

**_Somewhere in Tokyo..._**

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Tick, Tock. Tick, Tock...

Kagome glanced up at the black clock above the classroom door. She bit her lip.

_Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock..._

Rubbing the blunt pink end of her eraser against the orderly test sheet, she put her previous answer out of existence and filled in the bubble adjacent to it with an agitated scribble of her pencil. 

She flicked a sideways look up to that pushy, polished clock again. Two minutes left! Focusing back upon the test on the desk before her, she brought the pencil to her mouth and began to subconsciously chew on the stub of the eraser, or what remained of it. 

'_Come on, Kagome. Just five questions left!_' she admonished herself inwardly. She could do it, really. She had to... sure, she hadn't studied for this particular test, on this one particular day that she had told one particular hanyou about. He had a fit about it, as usual. Still, she would not be swayed. The dark-haired miko was bound and determined to make up for all the time she had lost in the modern era, and so with many angry words and a 'Sit!' or two later, here she was. 

The classroom was like many on the school compound; orderly, stark, and tending towards the certain nostalgia of a hospital room with its sanitary atmosphere. School had let out nearly an hour ago, reducing the environment to an even harsher comparison without the lively students present. Kagome was alone save for the stony-faced teacher seated at the front of the room, behind a large metal desk. The educator was awaiting Kagome's test with all the patience of a guru embedded somewhere high in a mountainous realm where none but the extremely desperate sought his guidance. The teacher had the angular look of someone twice his age, even though Kagome knew him to be a middle-aged man. Thick-rimmed glasses that were more kin to goggles than spectacles filled out his face like two obscene picture frames. Every now and then they would slip down his rotund nose, before halting at the base where his wide nostrils flared out.

"Time's up. Are you done?" the teacher asked calmly, steepling his long fingers upon the green ink blotter that lay across his desk.

Kagome sighed heavily, nearly punched a hole through her the scoring sheet as she winged the last answer, and then set her pencil down. Slumping defeatedly in her seat, she nodded numbly. "Yes, Mr. Kyoto."

Mr. Kyoto adjusted his glasses again, and then motioned for her to silently bring the test up to him.

Inwardly, Kagome felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She hadn't done well on this make-up exam, she just knew it. She still had several ahead of her, and between dodging youkai, hunting Shikon shards and putting up with Inuyasha's stubborn mood swings, it was getting a lot harder to fit in schoolwork with the overall picture.

No, scratch that... it was simply getting harder to fit her modern _life _into the overall picture. It wasn't fair. She should have the equivalent of 'Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free' cards for times like these!

Rising from her much smaller student's desk, Kagome bowed her head slightly in shame and closed the gap between herself and the seated Mr. Kyoto. The older man accepted the score sheet from her with an air of regality. Kagome suddenly found it harder to breathe.

Regarding the test as if it were an interesting specimen on display in a museum exhibit, he nodded cordially to her. "I'll see you here tomorrow for Exam Two, same time." His words were polite enough, but they held a certain distance to them.

"I'll be here, Mr. Kyoto." Nodding in return, Kagome wanted nothing more in that moment than to be free of the stiff teacher, the white-walled rooms and the empty resonance of a place that was usually thrumming with the sound of students.   


"Alright, Kagome. Thank you... I hope you remain well from here on out." His words seemed even further away, and Kagome realized that he was now eying her test studiously. He arched a brow while still inspecting it, and Kagome took that as her time to leave. She didn't want to stand there while he began to size her up as a failure based on what she was sure was a bad test score. 

"Uh.. thanks.. bye, Mr. Kyoto!" With an upward flip of her hand, Kagome emitted a short, embarrassed wave and hurriedly scurried out the door. Once beyond the classroom and in the hall, she gave another deep sigh and stood there for a long moment or two, gazing at the seemingly endless stretch of lockers and hallway. She began to believe that if she stood there long enough, the two wide entry doors to the school would burst open and a uniformed rush of students would invade the premises, just as if it were early morning and school was about to commence. They would laugh, call to one another, and then grow temporarily quiet when a stern look would hasten their way from a teacher standing nearby. When the bell rang, they would trade sympathetic looks, finish with their gossip and plans to meet after school, and shuffle into their homerooms.

Oh, how she missed that.

'_What are you doing, standing here like a baka_? _Get going... you still need to study for tomorrow!_' she chided herself, and then bolted down the hallway towards home.

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Once home, Kagome practically flew up the stairs. She didn't even stop to say hello to Sota, who was standing by the stairwell when she zipped by. "Hi, Sota!" she called by way of greeting, and then was gone.

A low, undulating rumbling sound from behind the young boy turned his attention to the ground. The noise was not unlike the dying grumbles of an old man, but Sota knew them well.

Bending down to pick up the lethargic family cat, Sota absently scritched behind one of Buyo's ears. "I wonder what's wrong with her?"

Shrugging, he turned and wandered over towards the kitchen where his mother was cooking. It was the place that made Buyo the happiest, after all.

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Once on the second floor, Kagome dropped her backpack off onto her bed, where it bounced once before going still. The schoolgirl made a mental note to bug her mom for a new backpack - hers was travel worn and riddled with grass stains, dirt, and other dark smudges that were really hard to explain to a certain wide-eyed pack of close friends that seemed to follow her wherever she went on the few times she went to school. With all those holes and stretched stitching, it was a miracle in itself that the backpack had held up as long as it did.

Next, to the bathroom. Kagome exited her bedroom with a neat bundle of pajamas in her arms. She entered the bathroom, shut the door behind her and proceeded to turn on the hot water after she had set her P.J.'s down on the edge of the bathroom sink. It might have been too early to consider getting changed into nightclothes, but she was far too tired to care. All she wanted now was a nice, long bath with real soaps, real shampoos and Kami forbid - _conditioner_ before she went to bed. Just the thought of sleeping on an actual mattress was soothing to the soul.

As she undressed and slipped down into the hot water, Kagome closed her eyes and threw her head back against the gentle slope of the tub behind her. She inhaled deeply, taking in the intoxicating warmth of the steaming water all about her. The goal to orient herself with the cleaner Kagome would come in just a moment. For now, she just wanted to relax and enjoy the feel of hot water that came from a tap the instant you turned the knob. 

It was a luxury she had often taken for granted before she met...

"Inuyasha, I think Kagome's in the bathroom right now." Kagome went rigid, every possible muscle in her backside tensing as the all-too-familiar name reached her ears. Her eyes snapped open, and she went as still as death. 

'_What is **he** doing here? I thought we agreed I'd come back in two days?!_' her panicked mind thought.  


It was her mother's voice, alright. Just beyond the door, in the hallway. The same door she had closed, and had forgotten to lock in her hurry to get into the bathtub. That very same door that had a knob that was slowly turning...

Kagome did what any proper schoolgirl would do; she closed her eyes tightly, crossed her arms against her chest, hunkered down in the water and screamed.

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A/N Well, that's Chapter 1! I actually wanna do an epic Inuyasha tale.. who woulda thought? There will be many more chapters after this, so it's not ending anytime soon! Let me know what you think.. R&R! :)


	2. Stay Seated

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I Was Invincible: Chapter 2

**_Present day Tokyo, the Higurashi Residence..._**

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"SIT!!!" Kagome shrieked, a word that by now escaped her lips on pure instinct. 

As was expected, a hollow thud echoed from somewhere behind the door, and it seemed that the entire house resonated with it. A mantra of disembodied curses floated through the hallway and to Kagome's ears. For the naked schoolgirl scrunching down in a tub of hot water, it was nearly incoherent over the frantic pounding of her heart. 

The knob to the bathroom door stopped turning.

Silence.

"Kagome?" From behind the thin barrier between hallway and bathroom, her mother tapped uneasily on the wooden door. "Are you decent? Inuyasha..."

As if a master puppeteer finally gave a good yank on the invisible strings that piloted Kagome's movements, the young girl stood abruptly. Water streamed down the creamy line of her flesh and thighs before feeding back into the small ocean encapsulated in white porcelain on all sides. Her fists clenched into tight balls at the sides of her body, and her eyebrows dipped down dangerously, practically intersecting on her forehead.

She was still dirty, curse it! Here she was, about to enjoy a nice, long bath and then dog boy came through the time hoop to annoy her yet again. He probably wanted her to return with him already. 

'_Too bad_,' she thought grimly. '_I already told him... **two** days. I'm not going back yet_!'

"Ask him what he wants!" she yelled back, making sure to let the tone show she was infuriated. She made a grab for the towel next to the bathtub, and wrapped it around her waist. As soon as she had done so, she regretted it. 

'_Gee, thanks, Sota! I owe you one..._'

The towel was soaking wet. The little pest hadn't had the piece of mind to replace it with a dry one when he took his bath earlier.

"He.. uh... just a second," her mother responded. There was a muffled exchange of words, things that Kagome couldn't make out, and then a new voice spoke up where her mother's had been just seconds before.

"Um.. Kagome?" It was Inuyasha. The thought of him being so near while she was currently garbed in nothing but used towel made her stomach tighten. Her mind then conjured up the image of her mother in the immediate vicinity as well, and she blushed. 

Now was definitely not the time to be thinking about things like that. She was angry, remember?

Without missing a heartbeat, she stole to the door. Her right hand deftly reached out, and turned the lock into place. Kagome gave a sigh of relief, and then answered the hanyou. "Yeah...?"

"We need you to come back. Something's happened."

She didn't like the way he said that. It was ominous, just like the dark gray clouds on the horizon that signaled a storm was approaching. Despite this, she was far too irritated about his intrusion to let her worry show. "So? I don't care, Inuyasha. I have four more tests to make up tomorrow, and dead or alive I'm going to make sure I show up for at least one day of classes!" Kagome glanced down at the tiled floor, and noted the way that she was beginning to create a small but growing pool of water at her feet.

"No!" he replied, his voice rising slightly. "You don't understand! Something... really bad has happened."

"I told you, I don't care! Go home!"

"Idiot...!" he snarled.

Uh-oh. Mrs. Higurashi could sense another fight coming on. This was her chance to get out of the picture - she was beginning to feel like an eavesdropper. 

"If you two don't mind, I'll just head back to the kitchen and finish with dinner..." Taking the chance to make her exit, she made a beeline for the stairwell. From her viewpoint, this left an annoyed half-breed youkai with his face nearly pressed to the flat surface of the door, and her aggravated daughter just beyond it. Both were yelling now, and they hadn't even noticed the flustered mother's quick withdrawal from the scene.

"Look, don't be stupid, girl!" Inuyasha shouted, going so far as to bang on the doorframe for good measure. The frame rattled, and from behind the door Kagome paused long enough to draw a breath.

"You're being unfair, Inuyasha! I told you, we had a _deal_. There is no way I can come back with you now. If I do, I'll flunk out for sure! I'm not even sure I can make it through with just two days, so you should be lucky it's so short in the first place!"

"Baka! Where have your senses gone!? If you don't come back today, then we might as give up altogether!" Inuyasha was growling now, and if Kagome could see him she would be face-to-face with a very terse demi youkai. His jaw was set stubbornly at an angle, and his sharp, dark brow was furrowed tightly. He banged on the door this time, and with more force than he had given the frame. "Get out here! We have to go, _now_!"

It wasn't the most sensible thing she had ever done. At present, all she was seeing was red. Every possible annoyance and aggravation stemmed from that bull-headed male on the other side of the door.

Striding determinedly forward with one hand clutching the towel to her body, she unlocked the portal and gave the knob a violent twist before swinging the door inward and aside. She was going to sit him... many times. Kagome also wanted to see his face while she did it. Her mouth opened, and she began to form the words that would get him intimately acquainted with the floor once again.

The raven-haired schoolgirl was simply not prepared for the sight that met her eyes when she took that brash course of action. Her mind would instantly regret it a couple of moments later, of course.

Inuyasha was standing there, dressed in his usual red haori. He was leaning forward, both hands clutched into tight fists - much as Kagome's had been earlier. His mouth was open too, and the glint of white fang winked in the harsh overhead lights of the bathroom. A stream of this sharp light had fled into the much dimmer hallway, and for a moment he looked lost and confused, blinking blindly and readjusting his vision to accept the new lighting conditions. Kagome stood in the path of this light, a shady figure outlined in the doorway.

As Kagome watched Inuyasha take a few seconds to regain his full vision, she also stood there and watched as his quizzical expression transformed into one of awe. Worst of all, he kept staring, and she was rather hastily reminded of Miroku and even more so her state of dress. Or was that undress?

The play of emotions on his face was both comical and mystifying. He was at first an estranged passerby beholden to the sight of a goddess in his presence. Nearly seconds later, one could surmise he recalled the wrath and dangerous quirks of that particular goddess. Fear of the inevitable and reluctant acceptance replaced wonder and appreciation for the vision he was allowed, if only for a second, to partake in.

Once the spell snapped and Kagome had realized that he was staring, she ground her teeth and slammed the door in his face again. He was left with the unexpected vibrations of the maneuver to slam as eddies onto his shocked features.

"_Inuyasha..._" 

Here it was, the condemning act.

"**_SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTT! SIT, SIT, SIT, SIIIIT!_**"

Eventually, the facial bruises would fade. It was the memory that was forever.

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Much, much later, after Kagome had made sure to take a slow and leisurely bath, both hanyou and miko sat in Kagome's bedroom. Inuyasha looked like he has been hit by a truck, and Kagome was still nonplussed from the earlier event. 

It had been her fault, in truth... she shouldn't have opened the door with just a towel on. Since when did she listen to him when he was shouting at her like that, anyways? If she hadn't been so angry then, she just might have heeded reason. Still, even though she had been the one to open the door and even been the one to offer him such a view, she knew full well that he had seen her in less before.

It was the principle of the matter, really.

It was late. Her mother had reluctantly called from downstairs after Kagome finished up in the bathroom, bidding them to come grab a bite to eat. One look at Inuyasha's face told her the answer she needed to give at the time. According to his actions, there was simply no time to spare. They both sullenly retreated to Kagome's bedroom from there, each refusing to speak. Kagome had entered the room first, flicked on the light switch, and then stood silently to the side in her pajamas. Inuyasha had trailed behind, but paused beneath her doorframe to suck in a deep rush of air.

Had he been smelling something she couldn't?

Sitting there on the edge of her bed with her legs crossed, she watched Inuyasha sulk on the floor. He was in his classic posture, the one that gave the impression that he would spring to action at any time. It was vaguely reminiscent of a lapdog, only he was posed in such a manner that the bent of the posture gave him the utmost comfort. If Kagome tried to emulate it, she would certainly fail. She summed it up to being a dog demon thing.

"So," she began slowly, hesitant to break the thick silence, "what was so important that you just had to come here before I planned on coming back?"

Inuyasha's white ears pinned back against his skull, but only briefly before they lazily swiveled towards her direction. Even as he did this, he refused to look at her. "Feh."

"Stop being such a baby and tell me what's wrong!"

"A BABY!?" he growled indignantly, "I'm not the childish one here! You're the one who said... that **word** when I hadn't done anything at all!"

"Oh, so you don't have time to argue, but you suddenly have time to tell me I'm to blame?!"

He grew quiet. His only reply was a gruff snort and a jerk of his head into a direction that didn't include the image of her within it. 

Kagome sighed, and then relented. "I... I guess you're right. I shouldn't have sat you for.. for looking.." As soon as she had said it, she turned a bright shade of pink.

  
That came out _so_ wrong.

Judging by Inuyasha's reaction, he knew it, too. His cheeks burned, but the miko did not see from where she was sitting.

Clearing her throat, Kagome made a frenzied gear shift into another direction entirely. "Um... so.. what was it that's so important?"

Inuyasha drew a deep breath, and gathered himself. He suddenly seemed to Kagome as one surrounded by strangers. He still didn't return his golden gaze towards her, but his head turned slightly towards her voice. In a rough tone bordering on hesitant, he spoke. "There has been an uprising among the other youkai." He didn't exactly elaborate further, so Kagome urged him on.

"And...?" she prodded.

He turned to her now, fully holding her within the dark and quiet depths of his unique eyes. "It concerns your time, and beyond that. There has been a foretelling of it by a youkai prophet."

She froze. It was all she could do as he finished with his last sentences.

"They now know that there is no place for them here and that many or all will cease to exist."

A pause.

"There is talk of war, Kagome."

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A/N: So there it is, Chapter Two. I hope you liked it! As always, let me know if I should just kill it here or keep going. Thanks! :)


	3. Through The Woods

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I Was Invincible: Chapter 3

**_Present day Tokyo, the Higurashi Residence..._**

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"**Nani**!?" Kagome exclaimed incredulously.

There was a tense silence that pervaded the room as it had earlier, but this one was different. It was neither petty nor proud like the previous; it was simply a moment in time in which both human and hanyou stopped to collect their thoughts.

"Inuyasha..." the young miko began slowly, after a few minutes had passed. She shifted on the bed, and then slid in one deft movement to the floor where Inuyasha was sitting. Kagome knelt, and put her hands in her lap. Her eyes drove themselves into the carpet, where her gaze held. "You aren't... you aren't making this up just to get me to go back sooner, are you?"

Now it was his turn to be taken aback. A pair of golden orbs concentrated on the crown of the schoolgirl's dark hair, for it was all he could see while he head was bent like that. "Feh! Don't be stupid. I wouldn't have come to this time if it hadn't been so important. There's no reason to."

At that, Kagome's head rose. Her expression exuded hurt for a moment, but that changed as an indifferent mask concealed the emotion.

That was odd. Even though such a comment was regrettable on the hanyou's part, Kagome usually just became annoyed or angered. This was a change unexpected.

Shaking his head as if to clear it, Inuyasha tore his focus from her and riveted it to the far wall, taking in the designs on the wallpaper. 

Kagome remained the same... strangely calm. After a second or two had passed, the dark-haired girl stood and turned away from Inuyasha to straighten the ruffled folds of her pink bedspread. 

Although she didn't show it, her emotions were flung into turmoil. Here he had come, bringing news of a possible war among the youkai of his time (the specifics were still muddled on her side of things), and she found she couldn't concentrate on it. The one thing that she _could _concentrate on was his offhand comment. It had been made so quickly, so casually.

'_He doesn't care. He never did. I'm so stupid sometimes... at least he's right about that._' She was her own worse critic, and she knew it. Of course, it was possible that with all of Inuyasha's insults towards over the entire time she had known him it just went to show that _he_ was in fact her own worst critic. It made her angry and sad at the same time...

Bitter, as well... but she was just being too hard on herself again. She had to be. Inuyasha wasn't that caustic anymore, wasn't he?

"Look, Inuyasha," she began, finally getting the nerve to speak while the hanyou continued to stare daggers into one side of her room, "I told you before, and I'm telling you now... I can't go back until all my tests are completed tomorrow."

That broke the spell. A low growl emanated from the son of a dog demon, and he rose to his feet with a blinding speed. 

Kagome whirled - she sensed something was wrong in the very way those rough sounds emanated from his chest. As time had passed, she had learned to discern from his many guttural reverberations. Some were annoyed, many were furious, and some were tolerant yet wary. This was a new type of growl, one she hadn't yet encountered. It was directed at her, or at least her rebuttal to join him back in the warring states era.

Inuyasha turned, and for the first time she noticed pain in his eyes. Not a direct pain, the kind that stems from a long-suffering life, but an indirect and even abstract hurt that took root in the fact that she had refused to help them in the past. Refused to help _him_ in the past. 

Her world was becoming more and more important to her, at least to him. He was being left behind... he was always being left behind, ignored... but he never actually stopped to consider that she, of all people, would ever be the one to do such a cruel thing.

And to _him_, even after he thought they shared a mutual understanding, a camaraderie, a...

He would not dare think it. He would not. As he purposely switched his mind off to the thought, he was unaware that the rumble in his throat reached a new pitch.

Kagome was still standing apart from him, and her dark brown eyes were wide with something he hadn't seen in a long time - fear. It was small, a burgeoning speck, but it existed. "In-Inuyasha?" The question was halfhearted, and more so uneasy.

Inuyasha closed his eyes, and forced himself to comply with the codes of normalcy. Both fists clenched at his sides, and he gnashed his teeth, averting his eyes at the same time. Without wasting a second more, he leapt to her window and forced it open. He could not bear to see her see him in such a way, with such a look on her face... he had to leave now. Things were not going the way he had wanted them to, and he had scared Kagome. It was a quick flare of slight fear, but it had been there. Refusing to look at her, he paused on her windowsill long enough to speak. His words came quick, forced, and more muted than normal. "After those tests, go straight through the well. We can't waste anymore time."

Kagome's eyes began to shine faintly, but Inuyasha would never see. He only barely caught his name, whispered regretfully as he hopped through the open window. In a flash of red, he was gone.

Kagome stood there a long time after he had left. She wasn't sure exactly how long, but it was long enough to watch the clouds turn a burnt orange while the sun steadily sunk lower down behind the horizon. A slight breeze stirred her mind into working again and ruffled the curtains; they billowed out and reached for her as if inviting her to come and depart the way Inuyasha had gone.

Inuyasha. He had given her quarter this time, he usually did, but something was wrong and slightly different. The hanyou had been deeply troubled by the problems arising in his own time period, but there had been something else that had rubbed the wrong way between them. She missed him already, and wanted to instantly right what had gone wrong.

But... he had _growled_ at her.

Maybe... maybe she wasn't being the friend she should have to him. The idea of being his friend was nearly ludicrous in the beginning, but she had strove for it and eventually attained it. It had been taxing, but eventually she aware of something much more. The day that that baby of Nark's had entreated upon her to embrace him, that day when news of Kikyo had taken Inuyasha far from the real danger before he realized that it had all been a trap... that was the day she had admitted aloud that she loved Inuyasha. 

She had known it all too well before, but to truly say it in front of the bad guys - that kind of took guts and cemented the statement.

Whether or not he loved her, she wasn't sure. Oh, he cared for her alright, although this most recent episode could have said otherwise. She wasn't sure. She just wasn't sure anymore.

Kami, Inuyasha...

Nevermind the tests. Her grandfather would find a suitable disease to explain her absence. After all, it was one thing the old man was good for. Kagome could never really pinpoint the reason as to why the school bought anything he ever offered them as excuses. When she really thought about it, however, it became clear that her grandfather's lapses into random history recitations actually set him up in the position of an expert. Sure he was droll, but when it came right down to it, would you really question the authority of someone on the phone who prattled on and on about the facts and theories of tetanus when it afflicted their poor, defenseless granddaughter (especially one with such a weak immune system, since immune systems are prone to...)? Kagome was sure it was to the point that the school knew him by his sly voice alone. Whoever was that poor, hapless school official that answered absentee calls? It didn't matter. They would assent to whatever daily reason Kagome's grandfather offered them just to get him off the line. Got AIDS? No problem. Count her out for the week. No, wait. Make that a month.

Shaking her head to rid herself of thoughts of her grandfather, Kagome hardened her features and shut the window securely before locking it. The curtains stopped breezing outward and mocking her, and inwardly she was glad. Now all she had to do was pack (ugh), stop downstairs to tell her mom and grandfather about her sudden change of plan, and be off down the well for another swell adventure in ancient Japan.

Gee, life was just _peachy_.

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**__**

Sengoku Jidai, the Bone Eater's Well...

Well, she was here. Still no sign of Inuyasha, or anyone else for that matter. Kagome had secretly held out on the false hope that he was waiting for her, just off to the side. She would emerge from the well, refreshed but still disappointed in their earlier (or, in respects to the time continuum, **much** later) argument. She would of course extract an apology from him in some form or another, be it a distracted 'Feh' or an apologetic look that was rare and barely lasted but a second. She would then apologize in her own way, most likely just by saying it aloud, and then things would be right again. They would rejoin Miroku, Sango, Shippo and Kirara, and commence on their mission... whether that was about the Shikon no Tama or this brewing war dog-boy spoke of. 

The miko's plan went back to the drawing board once she fully realized she was alone. No one was coming, and if she stayed still long enough she could swear she was the only sentient living thing for miles. The birds would sing, the sunlight would heat her face and the butterflies would flit from flower to flower, just as in her time. The well house would be here, though, and there wouldn't be an abundant overgrowth of pallid greenery that spilled and sprawled carelessly over this wild countryside in which she now stood.

Sighing, Kagome hoisted her backpack up and clambered over the stone ridge of the cistern. She would begin her usual trek back to the village as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred back in her time, and if she met anyone (save Inuyasha) along the way, she vowed to appear cool and composed. 

As she walked along through the forest path, she became increasingly aware of the vegetation crunching underfoot. Her adrenaline rose, and she couldn't help but to feel on edge. Something was distinctly wrong, there just wasn't the balance in the air as there usually was. She couldn't explain it, didn't want to. It wasn't the feeling she got when she sensed a Shikon shard nearby, it was different.

Ominous. Foreboding.

Shuddering, she continued on her way. The sunlight streaming through the overhead canopy seemed a lot dimmer than before. The woods held a darker element within the complex maze of branches, roots and leaves. 

The birds had ceased to sing, she suddenly realized.

'_Inuyasha, where are you..?_' It was her last thought before she was tackled from behind.

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A/N: So here's chapter three... we're getting somewhere with this people, I swear! I just need to keep going, and going, and going... (think Energizer Bunny here). I'll continue to update randomly, but remember that although there are comic elements in this fic, it's going to get dark pretty fast. Also, as you can tell, there may be lime (and dare I say it..) lemonade further on into the storyline. Waaay further on. Anyways, read on!


	4. Another World

**__**

I Was Invincible: Chapter 4

Sengoku Jidai, near the Bone Eater's Well...

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Kagome screamed. Well, at least she attempted to. She hit the ground hard on her stomach, and the wind was nearly stolen from her lungs. When a calloused palm clapped itself over her mouth and stifled any forthcoming outburst, she went numb. 

"Shhh..! They'll hear you!"

The young girl remained unnaturally still, frozen in place by the body atop hers and the unfamiliar voice that came from it. It was a woman's, yet the inflection was low and deep. She didn't know where to place the voice, but it seemed the woman knew her.

"Come with me. The others have already started to ford the river." 

'_W-What?_' Her mind stuttered, completely beguiled. 

Before Kagome could respond with a muffled protest, the hand over her mouth was removed and the weight lifted from her back. Once free to move, she began to rise. This action was eliminated when she was slapped across the back by her unusual captor, who hissed at her. "Don't! Stay below the line of the grass!"

Gasping as she was rapped firmly across the line of her spine, Kagome finally jerked her head back over her shoulder to take in the woman. She was hunched down below the long blades of meadow grass, glaring sternly at the miko. 

"Who are you?" The panic and scream had by now dissipated into the back of Kagome's throat. The face of the other female was familiar - she had seen her briefly before.

"We don't have time to talk! I'm from the village, just as you are!" The woman grated out her words, switched an uneasy look back over her shoulder much as Kagome had done seconds ago, and then returned her dark eyes back to the startled schoolgirl.

Oh. That's why she recognized the face.

It was one she had passed many a time in Kaede's village, one of the nameless girls that often skirted past Kagome's line of sight. She was a working girl, the no-nonsense type with straight black hair and solemn features that bore a slight resemblance to... dare she say it... Kikyo. There were important differences between the two, however. Kikyo had been elegant in life, much as she was in her undeath. The grit smudged across this woman's face told of a life of toil and hardship, much as the rough texture of her hands did. There was more emotion coming from this one, too. She was an anxious thing, too... pushy and almost paranoid with an odd fear showing in her kohl-brown eyes. Two thick, dark brows knitted together beneath the soggy, oily mass of bangs draping across her forehead.

It was the first time that Kagome noticed that she was perspiring heavily. Her breath came in shallow gasps, as if she had just run a marathon. "Go... go!" She shoved at Kagome's side. "They.. they're coming..."

"Who?" Kagome whispered, still frozen in that particular moment, the moment she felt horror seep into her heart.

She hadn't noticed it before, but the woman's kimono had been battered with dark stains that she couldn't... _wouldn't _contemplate. This was only true of the lower half, which was still shoved up and rode across the upper half of her hips. In fact, it seemed glued there.

Kagome spared no more time. She scurried through the myriad leaves of grass on all fours, and her terror only grew as she saw the village woman make a slick, shiny path in her wake as she followed Kagome. It was a dark trail, one that kept the trampled and yellowed grass down and sticking together in clumps.

__

Blood. 

The villager was bleeding from the inside out through the junction of her thighs. 

__

Rape.

Kagome was just adrenaline now. She couldn't think. She couldn't **think**. She was nothing more than an animal, a deer, running from the quiver of the hunter's bow. Her limbs took over, and shock made her intuitive mind sit at a distance and watch with morbid fascination. The woman behind her was beginning to lag severely, and her heaving pants grew worse. Kagome couldn't stop. The fear was born inside her heart like a mad thing, and it refused to let go even as her mind shrieked at her to go back. Instincts and intellect were now separated by a large canyon, one without a bridge to link it. One had to win.

It took a sheer amount of willpower to do what she did. The blunt ends of her hands dug into the soil, and she stopped. Quivering like a rabid animal, her head turned so that her eyes could disclose the location of the village woman behind her. _There_.

The woman was on her stomach, coughing with a weak, rattled exhale of breath that came randomly. Kagome crept closer, and closer yet, but then the sound of hoof beats snapped her eyes up and over to an incline in the meadow. The rapt sounds of horses reverberated from just behind that hill, the one in the direction of the village.

The nameless woman snapped her eyes up to Kagome's, who had by then fastened a shocked look to her in return.

The rape victim mouthed the word, '_Go_.' She coughed again, this time spraying the earth in front of her with a mixture of mucus and blood.

Kagome hesitated; she couldn't leave this helpless woman to die here, alone in the grass. She would stay and protect her... 

'_With what_,' her mind chastised, oddly calm despite the circumstances, '_your bare hands? Look, baka. You left in such a rush you left your bow and arrows at home._'

A cold feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. The bass voices of men on horseback neared, and a black banner crested the hill and into sight, bobbing up and down like a buoy on the ocean.

"**_GO!_**"****the woman cried out, this time with a high tenor that made the oncoming band pause and brooked no argument from Kagome. It was a second or two later that the hooves of horses shook the earth again, this time with a rapid pace that told the mysterious invaders had spurred the animals into an all out gallop.

Kagome felt fresh tears at the corners of her eyes. They threatened to fall, but she wiped the skin near her tear ducts with the back of one grimy hand that had been clawing through dirt earlier. With a deeply sorrowful and regretted look to the woman, she nodded once and took off again. 

She didn't look back... she couldn't look back. Part of the reason was attributed to the fact that she now had dirt in her eyes, and she winced and flinched as she parted the meadow grass with a hasty determination. It in turn batted against her face as if it was happily slapping her for her foolishness. 

The schoolgirl only stood once she reached the edge of the woods. There hadn't been any notice of her flight, nor was there a care for it. The soldiers had what they wanted back in the meadow.

As they once again took their turns with the woman, Kagome felt a deep shudder rack her body just before rivulets of liquid spilled freely down her cheeks.

__

The river. She had said to go to the river.

Kagome ran on, forgetting the sting of briars as they traced red welts against her exposed legs. She made sure to forget just how many times she tripped and fell, and exactly how many times she wished in vain for Inuyasha to appear.

...But she could never, **ever **forget the dying, piercing cries of that woman back in the field. They rang in her ears over and over like an insidious chant, even after Kagome was long out of earshot.

________________________________________________________________________

**__**

Sengoku Jidai, the river near Kaede's village...

The dark woods was a rushed memory, the small tears in her skin the only standing proof that it had actually happened. As the sound rushing water mingled with those tormented screams still assailing her head, Kagome snapped out of her entranced stupor. She saw shapes moving up ahead, through the trees. A muddled movement of various colors, like a Chinese festival dragon parting the rapids.

When she finally was able to comprehend that this was the remaining group of villagers that had somehow escaped the dysfunctional realm (the word 'realm' was the only way she could describe it. It hadn't been real... it couldn't possibly be...) she had just arrived from, she hit her knees on the soft bank. Her mouth dropped open, and her hands flew out before her and fell heavily onto the sandy soil with her fingers splayed. She knew better than to scream, but it was all she really wanted to do. She wanted to scream and scream and scream, until her own voice drowned out the unfortunate woman's and she came back to the present. Back to Kagome.

Instead, she settled for heaving. She heaved and threw up into the water, over and over again. The current carried away the tan broth that her stomach outpoured, and after a few minutes she was dry heaving violently.

"Kagome!?" A surprised and weary voice across the river called.

Kagome looked up onto the opposite bank on which the very last train of villagers was stumbling. Not everyone had made the deep rapids, but she failed to notice that yet. 

Sango. Sango was across the river. She couldn't see Miroku, Shippo or even Inuyasha anywhere, but that was definitely Sango. 

"Sango.." the girl wheezed, before a third, new scream snapped her out of the brief flare of relief she felt. 

There were two women and a toddler attempting to join the rest of their companions on the bank, and they stood halfway between Kagome and Sango's side. They were in the deepest part of the water, and floundering to stay above and in place as the rapids stirred and swelled about them. It appeared to be an elderly woman and a much younger one holding a child in one arm. The other hand was underwater, gripping the old woman's.

As Kagome and the others looked on in extreme disbelief, the older woman gave a gurgled choke that was somewhere between a yelp and disgruntled rasp. Within less than a second, for surely it was only that, the old woman disappeared beneath the water as the current separated her from her daughter's hand. The younger woman struggled to hold on to the infant that she held with one arm, while reaching for her lost mother at the same time. The young villager's chin dipped below the water as she frantically sought out any firm contact with the old woman's hand, but it was to no avail.

Suddenly, in much less time, the baby was swept away as well. This one didn't even get the chance to make a last, desperate lament before it was gone.

The young woman now was now alone in the middle of the river, and a low moan came from her person. She was ready to give up; ready to let the spirits of the river take her as well. Unfortunately, two young men had by then forded the gap between her and themselves by that time, and they forcefully grabbed onto her and dragged her back to shallower ground. 

The woman looked like she was sleepwalking, but without the effort. She was without a will to live as they hefted her ashore and deposited her on the stony embankment. Curling up into a fetal position, she shook and quivered but made no noise.

No bodies resurfaced downstream.

Kagome dropped her head and clenched her eyes shut. 

"Kagome!" Sango shouted. "Get up! We have to get you across... the village..."

"Stay there, Kagome-sama! We're coming for you!" It was Miroku, but listening to them yell at her was like listening down a long tube at a faint infusion of voices. She just couldn't feel, and the sight of the tawny earth and roiling water ahead of her was getting blurry around the edges.

How...

What...

Why...

__

Black.

________________________________________________________________________

A/N: So there's Chapter 4. Ok, people.. this thing is now officially rated R. Just letting you know!


	5. Grief

**__**

I Was Invincible: Chapter 5

Sengoku Jidai, location unknown...

________________________________________________________________________

Kagome woke to the blinding spill of early sunlight across her face. She winced at the sudden intrusion while the transition from darkness to light took place. The miko was filled with apprehension when she was finally aware that she wasn't in any place she had been before. Her waist began to bend, and despite the stiffness to her joints, she attempted to snap upright.

"Kagome-chan, you mustn't." A hand when to her shoulder, lightly pushing her back down. She knew that voice. Soft, feminine... Sango?

"S-Sango?" Her voice caught up with her mind a second or two later.

"Yes."

"What... what happened? Where am I?" Through half-cracked lids, Kagome attempted to glean any information about her location through her faulty vision, but all she could see was the overpowering outline of Sango's figure bathed in light. She seemed a holy apparition, unreal yet there all the same. Contrite too, because although her expression was hard to make out, Kagome was aware that she looked downtrodden and abused. Her hair was in disarray, and her ponytail hung dejectedly to a right angle. The kimono she wore was torn in spots, and hung from her frame with limply - almost as if the demon exterminator had been wearing the cloth for months and hadn't once removed it.

There was the unmistakable sound of water nearby. Kagome wondered why she was suddenly so aware of it.

"Kagome-chan..." Sango started, but then dipped her head to her chest and held it.

"Sango...? Where's everyone else? Miroku, Shippo, Kaede, Kirara..." She swallowed, and forced the last name from between her lips. "...Inuyasha...?"

"Miroku is among the other villagers, helping with the damages. I stayed with you."

'The others... tell me about the others...' she begged inwardly. It was like the dive off a chasm. She could hold her breath, tense for the jump, but she didn't want to look down. If she did, it would be a black, gaping maw. Nothing past it, nothing more than its indescribable darkness.

Void.

Sango slowly raised strange eyes up to Kagome's. The young schoolgirl had by now sat up inch by inch as she leaned toward Sango expectantly, and the other girl hadn't stopped her this time.

The sister of Kohaku was young, not much older than Kagome. Something was different this time, for a certain transformation had occurred on Sango's face in the time it had taken Kagome's eyes to adjust to the light since waking. She looked so old. There were no real permanent lines on Sango's skin, but now there were shadows in her eyes that nothing would erase, not even the brilliance of the sunrise over the water to their left. Those brackish penumbras in Sango's eyes brimmed with tears, but no liquid escaped their murky depths to steal down her cheeks. She kept herself in check.

"Kaede is dead, Kagome."

The fact hit her like a cold splash of water to the face. Kagome averted her eyes to her left, and took a detached notice that they were adjacent to a pond, not a river. "Kaede..." It was a croak. Unexpectedly, she wildly twisted at the waist and took a fistful of Sango's dirty garment. "Inuyasha! Tell me of Inuyasha...!" Her voice was high and nearly keening, full of desperation.

"I don't... we don't know where he and Shippo are. Even Kirara is gone. The raid caught us all by surprise, and we were separated... the village burned..."

Kagome's mind spun. '_Raid?'_

She thought back to the woman in the field. It was impossible not to do so, but there she was. The bloodied kimono, the trail of crimson fluid through the grass, the men on horseback... and the shrill shrieks. She had left her there, to die to the tune of those filthy men's grunts of pleasure as they took her again and again, tearing her open. She had failed...

Kagome jerked her head away from Sango, and the tears that her friend wouldn't release came unbidden to the miko. They coursed down her cheeks in watery ribbons, sparkling like glints of gold in the maiden morning.

Sobbing, her hands rose to her face, and suddenly Sango was hugging her from behind. "Kagome-chan! It's... it'll be alright. We'll find the others, I promise. We haven't lost everything."

'_But others had. Did Kaede experience the same fate as that... woman or did she burn alive in her hut, waiting for help that never came?_' Kagome couldn't help but to think it. It only made her weeping worse, and the violent onslaught of a mental picture struck her like a blade to her gut. Kaede was aflame, her wizened old face drawn tightly into a mask of sheer agony as her hair burned first; the grayed ends crisping and growing black before the skin melted and shed from her skull like melted rubber. 

Kagome moaned, and Sango began to rock her back and forth. "Shh-shh...."

They stayed like that for a long time. Kagome hunched over, knees drawn up to her chest as she clutched them for dear life in a vice-like hug. Sango had her arms around Kagome's neck, and was embracing her from behind. They grieved together, and even Sango let an errant tear fall now and again. Just beyond their bubble of mutual suffering, the lake shimmered and went from amber to cerulean as the steady sun rose higher in the sky, announcing noon. All around them, nocturnal wildlife slept and the animals that stirred during the day spoke to one another in the tongues of beasts as they quarreled for food and territory.

The world moved on, but Sango and Kagome stayed still.

It was Miroku who eventually came upon them. He had left the main grouping of villagers, who were beyond the bluff that eased down near the shoreline. After Kagome fainted on the opposite bank of the river, Sango and Miroku had spared no time in retrieving her, even when the men who had saved the young woman offered to do it. She was their friend, they had insisted. It was their duty.

So now they were here, miles from the charred spot that had been the village. It seemed like an amiable place to stop and rest, and with so many injuries amongst their small group, who could deny anyone some time to mend? Several people took turns carrying Kagome, and the mood had been so somber that Sango had noticed the lecherous priest had not once coped a feel when his turn to carry Kagome had come. When Miroku passed up easy opportunities like that, one had to know it was bad.

"Sango?" As the priest approached, the one he called for raised her head from the bend of Kagome's back.

"Houshi?" Sango smiled, albeit weakly. It was the false smile of someone catering to another's comfort, but Miroku wasn't mislead.

"You need to go rest. You look..."

"...horrible. I know." Releasing her arms from around Kagome's neck, she looked on to the miko with clear anxiety. "Kagome?" she said softly.

Kagome heard her name, and responded to it by weakly turning her head to acknowledge Miroku with some small amount of relief. Before she was acutely aware of it, the monk was by her side and looking expectantly into her tormented face. "Are you alright, Kagome-sama?"

"As well as anyone could be," she answered honestly. The dark-haired girl from the future had stopped crying some time ago, and now she just felt hollow and numb. As Kagome studied Miroku's face from mere inches away, she found something appallingly out of place. "Miroku... you... you... you don't have..."

"An ear?" he finished flatly for her.

It was true. One of the monk's ears was missing, and in its place was nothing but a slight stump and inward depression of the ear canal. It was difficult to discern anything, given the caked clots that had misshapenly formed as a warped substitute for where his ear should have been.

"_Miroku...!_" Kagome cried. She put such an emphasis on his name not solely for the strange disappearance of his ear, but rather for everything. Kaede's death (of which method that claimed the grandmotherly old woman, she had yet to know), the unimaginable demise of the woman in the meadow, the burning of the village, the drowning at the river, Shippo, Kirara and... oh, Kami... Inuyasha's disappearance. It was all too much, and beyond the sum of every vexation Inuyasha stood out the most.

'They don't know where he is... oh, Inuyasha...' She loved him. She was missing her other half, and it hurt with the glaring burn of an open, physical wound. 

Just as Miroku was missing a part of himself, so was she.

Bringing herself back to the present, she raggedly inquired of his missing ear. "How.. how did it happen, Miroku-sama?"

"Those bastards cut it off. I was trying to help some young girls escape out of their hut as it burned."

Kagome startled everyone by laughing. It was a dead laugh, bitter and short. Sango and Miroku exchanged startled looks.

So the ladies' man had been true to his nature, even under duress. It was too soon to release new tears, and the revelation was so ironic that it had caused her to laugh.

"Kagome-chan... are you alright?" Sango eyed her friend as if she had absolutely lost it.

"Sorry, Sango. I didn't... that is, that came out wrong." Kagome wiped viciously at the corners of her eyes, trying desperately to rid herself of the dried bits of tears that lingered there. Looking to Miroku, her blank visage settled into one of grim resolve. "Tell me everything, both of you. I need to know." 

Once again, the demon exterminator and perverted monk both found themselves at a loss and looking to one another for answers neither could supply.

"I just.. I need to know what happened before I came through the well. We need to know where to go from here." Kagome was surprised by the deadpan calm to her own voice. It was as if she were over the tears, over the mourning, and already moving on. Deep down, this was not so. She was merely putting up a front, overwhelmed by the severity of the situation and extremely concentrated on righting the wrongs. If she could find a solution, one that would bring back Inuyasha, Shippo and Kirara... then perhaps the rest of the horrors would go away as well. Kaede would be alive again, sitting in her whole hut, surrounded by similar ones in a whole village, with _whole_ people...

...But this was not so. Kagome knew it, but she couldn't admit to it just yet.

She had to try for the impossible. The entire ordeal seemed like a cheap thriller that a late night viewer would find on a local cable station subscribing to the supernatural. This was the low point in the plot; but their luck would quickly change, the tempo would pick up and before you knew it, they would all be back as they were once more. In all her dealings with the youkai, over all the corpses she had seen since she had started looking for the Shikon shards with Inuyasha, none of it had hit on such a personal level as this. What she had seen was not the effect of some magical being's petty whim to inflict harm upon a person, but rather a concentrated effort from a miscreant side of humanity to another, more nobler one. It was humanity at it's worst, and now certain irreplaceable things were missing because of it.

Yes, she could never remember witnessing things as she had now.

As Miroku and Sango tentatively began to explain the proceedings before her arrival into the past, she was touched by a thought that made her shudder.

'_Inuyasha said this was a war among youkai. Is this just a taste of what's to come?_'

________________________________________________________________________

A/N: Yeah... so... chapter five. More to come soon! :) As always, R&R and let me know what you think! Sucks? Good? Doesn't matter, anything goes!


	6. World Weary

**__**

I Was Invincible: Chapter 6

Sengoku Jidai, location unknown...

________________________________________________________________________

As the sun made a determined arc through the skies of a bygone world that was not Higurashi Kagome's (and yet she had found a home within it), the schoolgirl from the far future was still seated upon the banks of an unnamed lake with people who were forgotten (save by her) phantasms in her own era.

By then, Miroku and Sango had filled the reincarnated miko on much of what they knew, which really wasn't that impressive. Suddenly and without warning, the village had been attacked by a unit of soldiers who were purportedly under the banner of Nobunaga Oda, a daimyo who was quickly gaining prestige and fame throughout the entire area. The man was warranted to be a trickster, and in his employ he had amassed several types of weaponry and plans that had never been seen in all of Japan. These new tactics and items of destruction were from foreign lands, and his enemies suffered heavily at their might in battle. They were unprepared and naive of this warlord that had emerged from parentage of unmentionable blood, this daimyo who so quickly turned the tables on tradition and embraced western weaponry. 

It was almost ludicrous on how fast he was gaining footholds in all of Japan.

...And so it appeared that the raid on the village had nothing to do with the youkai at all...

It had been a pleasure outing for samurai and foot soldiers alike.

Burn a few huts (or all), pick up a few women (unwilling though they may be), have a feast (all stolen rations). 

Oh yeah, they went out and painted the town _red_ that night.

As she listened, Kagome was simply aghast. She could not put into words the empathy she felt for those people beyond the hill, that modest gathering of survivors who had their very lives shattered while the soldiers enjoyed the spoils of war. To the unit, they had been pawns.

"Just **who** do they think they are?" Kagome groused bitterly, once she was fully informed to the extent of both Miroku and Sango's knowledge of the event.

"Samurai?" Miroku interjected quietly, while Sango threw him 'the look'. He appeared oblivious to it.

"I know that, but... but..." Kagome paused, then finished. "They can't just come and kill everyone and not expect some sort of retaliation. Once we find the other guys, I'm sure we can..."

"Are you talking about revenge, Kagome-chan?"

Kagome skirted a slightly startled look to Sango. "I... well... no... but... we can't just let it go by! What I saw... no, what we all saw... and Kaede is dead now, too." Her voice cracked, and she couldn't prevent it in time.

Sango's eyes darkened with emotion as she observed Kagome. Reaching across to touch her friend's shoulder, she sighed. "We'll do what we can. You're right. We will find Kirara, Shippo and Inuyasha again." She spoke no further of vengeance against the daimyo's forces, however. To do such a thing was asking for suicide. Sango very well knew that Nobunaga was under the command of the highest shogun of the day, Yoshiaki Ashikaga. To cross any shogun was lethal, and so therefore touching his retainers were in fact like hurting him. With that thought, Sango's hand fell away from the curve of Kagome's shoulder as if it had been a mistake to set it there in the first place.

Sango wouldn't hesitate to take out a youkai going village to village in search of kills, but she did have a problem with creating chaos in the human hierarchy of things. Looking to Miroku now, who sat cross-legged beside her, she couldn't help but to frown. What he had told her that day... the day after she had been consumed by the jaki of that malevolent water youkai... it seemed there might be a future for them both, together.

He was still planning on cheating on her, though. She would cross that bridge when she came to it. There was _no way_ she would permit herself to marry him with the acceptance of that fact. 

He would just have to change his amorous ways by then. Period.

Out of the corner of his eye, Miroku caught Sango looking at him. He was attempting to be absorbed into the conversation that Kagome was so rapidly feeding, but it became impossible.

Sango and Miroku's eyes met. 

Sango blushed, her cheeks tainting a light crimson that burned. This wasn't the time to be caught up in Miroku's eyes like some maiden village girl!

Miroku, on the other hand, completely tuned out Kagome altogether for a few seconds. His expression softened around the edges, especially the stubborn set of his jaw as he fought off the dull ache in his missing ear. All he could see was Sango, and how the light illuminated the shine on her dark hair. She was so beautiful to him, even though she looked haggard from the defense they had attempted back at the village. He was almost in disbelief that she was here, at his side. He thanked Buddha for her safety, and had no idea what he would do without her. She was his companion and his best friend (even though she sometimes broke into temperamental fits and had the tendency to hit him with large objects). Beyond that, he knew deep down that he could more than care for her if things ever settled down and he could see her in a more peaceful light. He could fully show that he loved her. _Sango_.

"Um... guys...? Earth to Sango and Miroku!" The spell was broken the instant Kagome found herself swiping a hand back and forth between the pair.

Miroku and Sango twitched, and then muttered out a hasty apology at the same time. 

Again, they found themselves looking at each other.

__

'At least this time the eye contact didn't last for more than half a second,' Kagome mused. Both of them were looking at her now, with forced, undivided attention. The dark-haired girl couldn't help but notice that Sango was as red as a beet and even Miroku seemed to be sprouting a faint flush.

"So.. as I was saying, do you guys know why the others are gone? I mean, if you think about it, Inuyasha, Shippo and Kirara are youkai. We aren't. When did you last see any of them?"

Miroku, who still looked a suspiciously darker shade of tan, sighed. "That is a very good observation, Kagome-sama. Sango and I noticed it ourselves after we began to escort the remaining villagers away from the village."

Kagome turned to Sango, who for all appearances was getting over the past awkward moment. She looked somber sitting there, a perfect portrayal of contrition. When she spoke, her voice sailed along smoothly save for perhaps an anxious undercurrent. "Kirara was helping me. She and I had gotten several children to the safety of the forest when one of them began to cry. I bent down to tell the child she couldn't make much noise, and when I looked up... she was gone." An aggravated exhale of air came from the demon exterminator as she hugged her knees to her chest. 

Kagome knew that Sango was missing Kirara horribly. Miroku noted this as well, and leaned almost imperceptively towards her, as if unsure how to broach the situation. Clearing her throat, Kagome smiled encouragingly towards Miroku who put a hand on Sango's shoulder. Looking between them, the miko marveled at the recent change in their actions towards one another.

Kami, she missed Inuyasha. Where was he? Was he alright? Was he...?

'_No_,' she firmly thought, '_he isn't. He can't be. I can't feel the way I feel about him and then he's gone... I have to tell him before..._' She could feel the corners of her eyes prick with tears, but she fought them back.

"What about Inuyasha and Shippo?" she inquired softly.

"Shippo ran off to go help Inuyasha when we heard the sounds of horses. He went to go meet them," Miroku informed.

Kagome felt herself choke. "No," she whispered. 

In a flash, she was on her feet. She strode with purpose to the other side of the bluff, towards the huddled fraction of village people that had survived. She could hear the muffled sounds of children crying, an old man snoring, and several women weeping quietly. Faintly, she caught the startled exclamations of Miroku and Sango at her sudden departure, but she would not be stopped. When she finally crested the hill, her breath hitched in her throat.

There they were. There was so few left. It amazed her that she expected more of them. Most of them were women and children, save for the two younger men and the elder who made the loud noises in his fitful sleep. She had seen these men before too, just as she had seen the woman that died at the hands of Nobunga's men. They had been farmers, most likely, and now they were the caretakers for a group of about twenty people besides themselves.

It shocked her, really. '_Twenty left._' Out of the hundred or so that had populated Kaede's village once, a mere twenty or more had lived past the raid. Her eyes surveyed their weary and gaunt faces, the defeated way they held each other, and she was again shocked to note that of this sum, about six were children between the ages of infant and adolescent. 

There had been far more than that. Those must have been the ones Sango had explicitly saved. The rest... gone. The woman who had lost her baby and mother to the swirling river... she was there, too. Propped up against a woman of about the same age for support, it appeared as if she were a life-sized doll. Meaningless words and phrases escaped her lips as she stared at and past the ground at her feet. Every now and then her despairing friend would adjust the river woman's position, just to alleviate the pressure on her arm that caused it to fall asleep in spots. Other than that, there was no movement from the two.

Everyone looked dead.

'_Can I really blame them? They have nothing now. Nothing._ _Neither do you, if Inuyasha..._'

"No!" she whispered fiercely to herself again, just in time for Sango and Miroku to hear as they came trailing up after her from the lake.

"Kagome-chan!" Sango said breathlessly. She was so sore, and it seemed too soon to move.

"Guys..." the girl responded hesitantly, "is there any way we can help them? Where are you planning on going from here?"

Although she could not see him, she knew it was Miroku's soft baritone that reached her ears. "We are bringing them to a remote village about a day or so from here once they feel they can walk again. After that, we plan to go find Inuyasha, Shippo and Kirara."

Kagome nodded dumbly. Words suddenly seemed worthless and wasteful.

Sango took charge, and walked past Kagome to speak publicly to the others. All of the exhausted men save for the grandfather glanced up at her form as she presented herself to them, but their eyes were the glazed over orbs of frozen fish. Other glum villagers turned to acknowledge Sango too, but the looks on their countenances were not wholly there.

As Sango spoke of their destination and Miroku stood behind her in his apathy, Kagome crept quietly back into her own thoughts and meditations. It was now fully obvious that this calamity was the work of humanity, not the youkai. What she couldn't understand was exactly how and why the youkai-blooded members of their group unexpectedly vanished without a trace.

It didn't make sense. She was aware of the era she was in, but experiencing the suffering first-hand was like being slapped.

'_Baka. You never thought it would affect you this much._'

**__**

Inuyasha...

________________________________________________________________________

A/N: Done with that one. :) I know this story is progressing slowly, but I plan it to. This thing is gonna be looooong. Oh, and I just wanna note that Nobunaga actually existed, and so did the shogun I mentioned. You can look them up if you want. I'm throwing in historical figures and places from now on, too. They'll all be central to the ending of this story. Nothing like a good dose of reality!

Also, I'd like to thank Inuyasha Babe for all the support she has given me. She keeps making me want to turn out chapters faster than I already can, but unfortunately real life gets in the way, you know? So here's to Inuyasha Babe... thanks for all the good comments! You too, Bachan! I appreciate the suggestions! Thank you all!

__


	7. Fast Forward

**I Was Invincible - Chapter 7**

_"Things do not change. We change."_ - Henry David Thoreau

_**Sengoku Jidai, Western borders - Eight Years Later**_

* * *

"_Sesshoumaru-samaaa...!_" 

A young voice spliced the air before trailing off in a tumble of constanents. The owner of the call was an adolescent girl, no more than sixteen summers of age. She was garbed in an orange and yellow yukata, as befitting the summer season that surrounded her. The wind caught and whipped Rin's hair behind her like a black banner while her bare feet slapped the earth beneath her soles.

"Quiet, stupid girl!" came an indignant answer, but not from the being that she had addressed so shrilly. Behind her, a small creature resembling an upright toad struggled to keep pace. His large, bulbous eyes were wider than usual and resembled yellow dinner plates as he scurried along. The amphibious being, for he was known as Jaken, could not keep the girl's longer strides in tandem with the short ones his small, forked feet produced. He lagged behind horribly, and for all that he huffed, waved the staff he carried and cursed her, it was in vain.

The girl that eluded Jaken at last spotted her destination ahead of her. Her dark eyes widened in merriment, and she came to an abrupt halt beside a tall figure. A deft reach and small tug upon his hakama entreated upon the youkai to notice Rin, and with a slow swivel of his head, he did. "Sesshoumaru-sama, Rin and Jaken came across a village!"

By then the green youkai had caught up with Sesshoumaru and his ward, and flailed his arms wildly. "Tell the truth, baka! It was I that spotted the village first, not you and your pathetic human eyesight." That said, Jaken puffed out his chest proudly and closed his viper-eyed gaze to them both for a moment.

"Jaken."

One round eye slid open, and a fine tremble began to vex the minor demon. "Forgive me, Sesshoumaru-sama." Quietly, the retainer scuttled backwards and away from his master, head bowed in submission. He took up occupancy behind the girl again, but he was not without his own private revenge as he stared daggers into her back.

The one-worded warning from the Lord of the Western Lands was enough. He was a tall being, finely framed and garbed in detailed finery that befitted his title and rank. Long white hair fell over his shoulders, and his aristocratic features were devoid of expression..

Rin stared up into that emotionless mask that he constantly wore, undeterred from rolling her eyes at the exchange between her master and Jaken. She grinned widely, and gave another sharp tug upon Sesshoumaru's attire. "Can Rin..." she began, before ceasing her childhood indication of her person and starting anew. "Can _I_ enter the village for a short time to find a new yukata?" Straightening herself, she dropped the hand she had fisted in Sesshoumaru's hakama and pulled poignantly on her own clothing. Her summer kimono was splattered with a collection of permanent stains that refused to come clean even in the fastest of streams. Beyond this, the fabric was stretched and wearing thin. The yukata was made for durability in mind, but even the toughest fabric could only go so far when the wearer was constantly traveling. Her plea must have gained footing in the eyes of her master, for the youkai's eyes flickered beyond her face to look past her.

"Jaken, take Rin to the village."

"But Sesshoumaru-sama, I..."

"Jaken."

He needn't be reprimanded twice in the same minute. Sesshoumaru's servant gave Rin the greatest glare he could muster before beckoning her on with a sharp flick of one green finger. "You heard Sesshoumaru-sama, human! Let's go!"

"Thank you, Sesshoumaru-sama!" chirped the teenager with glee, before she threw her arms around him in a quick embrace. Her height was diminuitive, but only temporary as she continued to grow. Her arms only managed to encircle his obi for the briefest of moments before she hastened after Jaken.

There was no acknowledgment upon Sesshoumaru's face as he watched them depart, just as there had been none when Rin had hugged him. After a moment or two, the dog demon blinked; a long, downward sweep of his eyelashes that only reopened in the opposite direction the duo had gone. He stared this way, immobile. To any estranged bystander he would appear as an alabaster statue in the midst of a forested clearing, but in reality he was listening. The incessant chatter of Rin and Jaken gradually faded into obscurity, but their separate smells had not. He would know if something should befall them along the way to the village, and with this knowledge the great youkai moved suddenly through the air and was gone.

----------------------------------

"Jaken, hurry up!"

"I _am_ hurrying, idiot!"

The unlikely twosome traded barbs the entire journey east towards the human settlement. It didn't take much to annoy Jaken, Rin mused. The small toad could be set off quicker than a firecracker, and Rin made sure to enjoy the fact whenever possible. "I surely can't tell that you are." Giggling, she broke into a light jog in order to invoke his ire further. They had begun with Rin tailing Jaken, but as always she had overtook his pace and was now several lengths ahead.

"That's because you have those ugly chicken legs!"

"Chicken legs?" The girl glanced over her shoulder with a short frown. "How can Rin have chicken legs when little Jaken-baka has the feet of a rooster?"

At that, Jaken cast a sour glance down at the three toes on each foot that peeked from beneath his brown robe. Rin's statement confirmed his fear, and it only incensed him further. "Why you..." He began to wave his staff high above his head again, as he was always prone to do when angry. Worse yet, he began squawking which only lent more credence to Rin's prior observation. "Come back here so I pound good manners into your dimwitted human skull!"

"Only if you can catch me...!" With that, the taller of the two was off like a shot. Another undignified squawk from the toad let her know she had put even more distance between them.

"You're lucky Sesshoumaru-sama..." The sound of Jaken's shriek died behind her as she came across two girls trundling through the forest ahead of her. By the baskets they carried on their shoulders, she realized they were gathering berries within the woods.

Rin came to an abrupt halt. Her head canted slighty to the side, a canine action that might have been reminiscent of Sesshoumaru himself in his younger years. The undergrowth beneath her feet snapped softly, but loud enough for the other two females to become instantly alarmed.

"Oh!" one cried, whipping around so quickly that the woven basket perched atop her shoulder blade nearly toppled over. Her companion was no less surprised, yet she still had some merit of grace in her spin that bespoke of her older age. Noticably taller when compared to the more skittish girl, this one widened her eyes perceptively before a small smile formed on her lips. She appraised Rin carefully, and then decided she was hardly a threat.

"Hello, there. I do not believe I have seen you before. What are you doing out here alone in the woods? Are you from the village?" The elder girl gave an obligatory wave in the general vicinitiy of the village before placing her hand on her hip. Her smile was disarming and patient. Her younger counterpart had since composed herself and was grinning to expose two missing front teeth. She couldn't have been any older than Rin had been when she had first happened upon Sesshoumaru in the woods.

"Ano.. hello!" Rin countered, quickly finding her manners despite her sudden unease. Her anxiety stemmed not from the fact that she had accidently stumbled across two strange girls in a clearing, but rather that Jaken would be quickly closing the gap between her and himself. She did not need the toad youkai to frighten the girls a second time. Chances were that they would not be so tolerant of a short, stumpy toad youkai appearing out of the undergrowth as they had been towards a girl of their own likeness.

"Is something the matter?" the older girl asked, slightly concerned with Rin's stuttered reaction. She was about Rin's own age, give or take a year or two. Both girls wore peasant attire, which bespoke no great affluence or heritage of their persons. Although Rin's yukata was obviously of a much higher grade than their own despite its worn condition, they made no apparent note of it.

"N-No. Not at all." Rin supplied a quick, faltering smile that remained as a trembling reminder of her lie.

The village girls said nothing, but spared one another a quick look. "My name is Chiyo," said the taller of the two, at last breaking the silence, "...and this is Kiku, my younger sister. Are you lost?"

A small smile crept upon Rin's features as she apologetically shook her head. She had seemingly collected herself, and for this she was glad. "No, not really. I was heading for your village... I am going in the right direction, I hope?"

Chiyo's eyes twinkled with merriment at Rin's voiced contradiction, and the ward of the Western Lands felt all the more sheepish. "Yes, it is this way. We were just returning. Would you like to accompany us back? It would most likely save you time."

"I, ano, hai."

"Good!" chirped Kiku, adding her high tenor to convoluted conversation. She readjusted the basket on her shoulder and used to freehand to tug at Rin's sleeve. "Come... what is your name again?"

Again, Rin felt a slight flush of embarrassment at her socially-inept ways. She had been so long without much human contact that her halting mannerisms now manifested themselves to her own kind - and peers her own age, nonetheless. It could not be helped, although the girl made a mental note to appear more forthcoming while in the village in order to appear less odd.

"I apologize, my name is Rin."

"Come then, Rin-chan!" Another impatient tug ensued, and Rin's eyes moved from Kiku's impish grin to Chiyo's more knowing face.

Rin nodded mutely, and the threesome set off. Only once did Rin glance back over her shoulder to scan the woods for any sign of Jaken. Strangely enough, she detected none. The girl was certainly below par with demon detection, but her time among them trained her to hone senses other than her eyes for danger. It was a magical, mysterious world among the youkai, but a deadly one. She had known this from a young age, and her existance now still depended on her ability to understand when and where her guardian and Jaken were. It was not to say she was useless without them, in fact she would be quite offended by the insinuation. It merely came down to the brutal fact that she was a human living in a world of demons, and anyone with half a brain would realize that even the most minor demon could smite the girl where she stood were it not for Sesshoumaru's presence. She relied on it as much as she relied on the air she breathed.

The three walked calmly down an incline with Chiyo in the lead. The village was at the base of a hill, and already Rin could make out the vague outlines of buildings. Her heart began to speed up in her chest with the anticipation of aquiring a new yukata, although Jaken's abnormal absence was slightly worrying. Normally she wouldn't have consciously admitted her concern about the toad, but Jaken was still a friend. A verbal sparring partner, an annoying amphibious youkai without a spine, but an old friend nonetheless. On the rare occasions that Rin was able to visit villages, Sesshoumaru-sama and Jaken would be always nearby, lurking at the edge of the forest as they listened and waited. At the very least, Jaken would accompany her to the edge of the forest while she went about her business. She knew Sesshoumaru was always nearby as well, but she couldn't detect him as well as she could Jaken.

There was always a rustle in the undergrowth somewhere, a quiet (for Jaken) squawk if he stubbed his tri-pronged toes on an upraised root... _some evidence _that he was there. Now there was nothing.

Quieter. The woods seemed quieter. Now even the birds ceased to sing.

Now the only sound seemed to be the crunch of dry leaves beneath Rin's feet. She found it odd how the other girls ahead of her seemed to tread so silently that she was unable to discern even the slightest sound from them. Unable to bear the silence much longer, Rin broke it.

"Uh.. Chiyo? Kiku?" she questioned meekly. "Did you notice how quiet it suddenly is?"

Chiyo did not turn around to answer. In fact, she seemed to increase her pace. Only Kiku, with melancholy eyes, turned her head to rest her focus on Rin over her shoulder. She did not speak, but Rin was taken aback at how _old_ the girl's face seemed then. Dark shadows fell across the planes of her cheeks, and the elfish appearance of the girl had somehow been replaced by that of wizened old woman. Rin stopped in her tracks, opened her mouth to make a sound, but was left like a fish gaping out of water. She blinked, opened her eyes again, and then Kiku's face was as it had been before - glowing with health but radiating sadness.

Kiku turned to face the back of her sister once more while Rin shook her head as if to clear it. Had she just seen what she thought she had seen, or was it truly a trick of the light?

It was only until Rin and the sisters she followed reached the base of the valley that Rin had completely forgotten all about the visage of a shriveled old hag. Her eyes were suddenly assauged with a new horror as she saw billowing smoke rise out of the windows of huts. The air was thick with the stench of ash and burning corpses. Rin began to gag, and she was struck by the fact that she hadn't noticed it before. In fact, the village had seemed normal through the treeline just a minute prior..

Rin opened her mouth to scream, but the sound died in her throat when she flung her vision upon Chiyo and Kiku. The elder of the two had simply disappeared the moment Rin had looked away, but now Kiku was on fire. How she had so suddenly become so without making a sound was beyond Rin's imagining, but then things were happening so fast that it almost seemed to be a dream sequence.

Kiku's face had shrunken down again, leaving Rin to realize that she hadn't been seeing things earlier. The young girl had her mouth open in a contorted look of true anguish, and she was reaching a firey hand for Rin. The flesh squeezed down taut on her cheekbones, just as it had earlier - but Kiku wasn't aging now. She was dying. The fire that had consumed her lower body by some unforseen means was now at her neck, melting flesh and charring bone.

Rin finally screamed. She screamed wordlessly, tonelessly. She screamed until she managed to form a coherent word.

"_SESSHOUMARU-SAMA_!"

The flames were now devouring Kiku's head as if she were a giant wax candle. Grotesque globs of clear liquid and darker chunks hit the ground at Rin's feet. Her hair crackled like dry straw as it burst into flames last, and the sight forced Rin backwards onto the ground. She was choking on her own tears, her screams, and the smoke wafting into her lungs. Everywhere but from the remnants of Kiku came other screams - they joined Rin's in some hellish chorus that emanated from the very epitome of misery and suffering.

Burning, burning, burning - they were all on fire but Rin. They danced about her, and one shape came close the moment Kiku's last spark had been doused to leave ashes. It was a man, she could see this through her wide eyes while he too stared at her in much the same, horrified way. He was being eaten by fire from the chest down, and strange mewling sounds came from the most guttural confines of his throat. He crawled towards Rin as his face sagged and he shrieked. His limbs didn't quite work in the way they were supposed to, and his cries were those of an animal, not a human. One skeletal hand reached for Rin as Kiku's had, and she shrunk back.

Suddenly, he popped.

It wasn't the slow melt that she had witnessed with Kiku. This was entirely different, and somehow worse in a way. The man imploded. He was suddenly there, steadily moving for her while he was being consumed by the hell that had befallen them all, when he just ... wasn't. A sound that wasn't unlike the popping of a log in a campfire hit her ears, and then the man's structure just deflated. What met her eyes next was what could have been taken for a burning mass of rubber, had it existed in feudal Japan. Instead, Rin saw it for the visceral clump that it was, and she began to heave. Despite her increasing inability to breathe, her body still had the gagging reflex.

As her stomach cleansed itself all over the smoky ground, a patch of dark black cleared for a moment and she heard a rumbling growl. Desperate, she made her way through the dancing lights that fogged her half-cognizant brain. She had witnessed death before, but never like this... never like this. The gnashing fangs of the wolves as they tore her apart as a child was nothing compared to the absolute wasting here. It was the nightmare to end all nightmares, the kind that turned the dreamer into a waking bedlam that plagued them for the rest of their days and nights.

...Only this was real. Very real.

A furred foot descended from the sky, pounding to rest just meters away from the despairing teenager, and for once relief flooded her senses and returned her to the here and now. Sesshoumaru-sama, he had come! In her desperation, Rin threw herself at the ankle of that white paw, now sooty and gray from the remains clouding the air. Her arms did not encompass the leg entirely, so her fingers entwined themselves instead with the charcoal-gray fur in a vise-like grip. She was shrieking and sobbing at the same time, she wasn't sure which. For one real, rare moment she felt safe again.

That moment ended too soon.

Flung from the giant appendage that disappeared overhead into the reeking smoke like she was nothing but a rag doll, Rin found herself falling and hitting a pile of scorched bodies that had somehow been tamped out before they had turned into ashes. Her cheek lay upon someone's bloodied vertebrae in the most uncomfortable fashion, and her eyes stared sightlessly ahead of her, dumbfounded. A moment passed, then two, and then what breath she had left returned to her. Slowly, painfully, she turned her head up towards the leg that had thrown her.

Somehow, she pretended she was dreaming again. Endorphines kicked in and masked the dull ache her body now emanated, and it seemed to her now that she was away from her body, looking down upon it rather than in it. She saw the giant jaw of the large demon dog descend, before snapping up a burning woman from the ground as if she were a trout in a stream. For a perfect moment, Rin captured the look on the woman's - Chiyo's - face before she was bent in two. Her body stretched abnormally, and broke at the midsection with a sound not unlike that of a dry branch being split in someone's hands. Sesshoumaru's maw enclosed itself upon the two halves of Chiyo, and then Rin saw no more.

For once, the all consuming-void that swallowed her senses was greedily embraced.

* * *

A/N: Okay, now I know what you guys are wondering what THAT was all about - after all, I'm going from a story of Inuyasha to focus on a scene with Rin, Sesshoumaru and Jaken eight years down the road.. don't worry, it'll all tie in together later. Also, I know I've been gone (checks..) about a year and a half, but I'm back, really! For now.. yeah.. so.. here's chapter seven, finally! 


	8. Disbelief

**_I Was Invincible - Chapter 8_**

"_If I smile and don't believe, soon I know I'll wake from this dream_." -**_Hello_**, by Evanescense

_**Sengoku Jidai, 8 Years Later**_

* * *

Rin awoke slowly. Senses returned to her at an even more dredging pace, and sound came to her as if listening down a long tunnel. She thought she heard voices, but she wasn't entirely sure if the muffled noises were emitting words or merely pitches. 

Almost reluctantly, her eyes opened last. Bright light stung them into a visual world, one blurry and red in the corners. Her fogged brain worked strenuously to process images, but her sight was a slow operation that gradually gave her the realization of her surroundings.

She was in a room, albeit a small one. It looked like the inside of a hut, perhaps one that had burned down. Burned?

A torrent of unbidden memories flooded her recollection, and she gasped. "Chiyo! Kiku! ...Jaken." Her eyelids closed, and then in an even more pained whisper she added, "_Sesshoumaru-sama_...!"

He had eaten Chiyo. It was not the time nor the place to dwell on such recent events, but it was impossible to forget the large droplets of bloody drool that had hit the ground almost obscenely as he chewed on the unfortunate girl.

No, it couldn't be. Sesshoumaru-sama would never eat humans, not with her there. She had called for him, and he had come. But.. those girls hadn't meant her any harm. She didn't think they did, even though Kiku's strange facial transformation still confounded her. Sesshoumaru-sama had also thrown Rin far and wide as if she were merely a parasite latched onto his leg. Had he been coming to rescue her, why would he do such a thing before devouring an innocent village girl?

'No,' her mind admonished her vehemently, 'do not think this way. Sesshoumaru-sama would never hurt me. He was trying to save me!'

Even though the events made no sense, the loyal girl refused to acknowledge the fact that her guardian would ignore her to destroy lives. Even in her earliest memories of him, he _always_ came for her. She was too tied to him and their years together to believe anything else. He ordered, she obeyed without a thought to the command. Wherever he directed, she would follow. She had no other need or will in her time with him to do otherwise.

He was everything to her.

...But now he was gone, and she had seen him eat an innocent girl. Unperceived though it was, the first seed of doubt rooted itself in her now adult mind.

Now her focus shifted about the room, taking in the objects. It was a spartan dwelling, with a dirt floor. Mud, reeds and animal dung composed the walls about her, and she lay on a mat with another thrown haphazardly over her body for warmth. The only other furniture in the room was a rough-hewn wooden trunk nearby her proximity. Various pots and weaving materials were neatly positioned against the crude walls, giving the room a tidy but poor appearance. The voices she heard - and yes, they were most definitely voices - emanated from the other side of a thin shoji screen. It appeared the hut might have two rooms, which was rare for a dwelling of its composition. It seemed odd to Rin, who had grown up in a shiro without want of anything. She never judged those who had less than she, for she still recalled a dim time before Sesshoumaru had come along. In this past she had been an orphan without a home or friend, and it was the driving need to find someone that would accept her that brought her to the injured youkai's side. She had been beaten by the villagers from whom she had taken food, and therefore was driven into the forest. She continually stole from them not because she believed it wrong (what child at such a young age believes that surviving is wrong when hunger is all that drives them and no one has taught them any different?). What she didn't understand was why they beat her. Why couldn't they share? They had plenty.

When she first came across the injured demon, she believed him to be in the same situation as she. Alone, and beaten continuously for taking food just to live. This common thread that she had believed to exist was what drove her to help him. When he refused her first offering of food so abruptly, that childish theory crumpled to dust and she soon came to know the real truth of the matter. Nevertheless, she stayed by his side and followed him - probably because he tolerated her presence then. True, he had snarled at her with those flashing red eyes of his inner demon, but she was used to agression taken against her. Surprise and wariness were with her then, but defeat was not.

Now it felt close. So close.

"Is she awake?" came a clear sentence. The shoji screen had been quietly slid aside while she was lost within the shades of her memories.

"I do not know." The reply was deeper, male, but cracked on the edges. A silence prevaded, and then from beyond both vocalities she heard a young child cry out.

"Mother, mother!"

One of the individuals retreated, something Rin gleaned from the sudden rustle of cloth and the echo of footsteps. A man was suddenly at her side, staring down into her eyes with a quick scrutiny. Her wide eyes were abruptly consumed by the image of a young man, most likely a few years her senior. His narrowed brow creased the intersection above the bridge of his nose, but relaxed when he saw she was awake. Something about him was oddly familliar, and most uncomfortably so. It was if she had met him before.

She swung upward to sit upward, quickly filled with the panic of her situation now that the dream-like quality of her shock had worn off. She nearly bumped foreheads with the young man hovering above her, and he took a step back to avoid a certain collision. "Where am I!" Rin cried, "Who are you? Where is Sesshoumaru-sama and Jaken!"

The man frowned for a moment at something, and dark clouds filled his equally dark eyes. He approached her, hands out in supplication. "Calm down, do not exert yourself." He touched her shoulder in a half-hearted attempt to get her to lay back again, and she flinched away violently.

"The fire! Who are you? What do you want? I need to find Sesshoumaru-sama!" She tipped herself to kneel in order to clamber to her feet, but the effort itself felt like it took more than her battered body would allow. She must have hit her head in the fall on something, for a sudden wave of vertigo claimed her senses and she stumbled before rising as her knees gave out. She ended up in a graceless heap with her hands on her head.

The man was suddenly there. "I told you to take it easy. There, now.." He touched her again, this time on the back of her head. She tried to pull away, but her dizzyness refused to free her. She also realized that the support he gave her grounded her, and soon the room gradually stopped spinning. "Better?"

She swallowed thickly. "Yes. Can.. can you tell me where I am and who you are?" Now that she had been humbled by her own limitations, she felt somewhat more collected.

"Of course. My name is Kohaku. You are in the home of my sister, my nephew and I."

_Kohaku_.

It came back to her in a rush of sensation and images, and she nearly doubled over again. "You... I know you."

He smiled slightly, a familiar smile that had not yet surpassed time. Those all too familiar eyes stared into hers and she was almost lost. "I was wondering if you would remember." He knelt by her side now, and she found just enough strength to push herself away to put distance between them. His hand fell away helplessly, and he remained where he was.

"You were there... and I... Sesshoumaru-sama did not..."

"Yes." His features grew stony again at the second mention of the name.

"Where is he? I must return to him!" Panic began to fill her voice again, but instead of relieving her of it, he merely increased it.

"I do not know. My sister used to reside in the place we found you. You were knocked out cold."

"You were in the fire too?"

"Fire?" He appeared genuinely confused. "There has not been a fire there since..."

She cut him off. "There was a fire.. everyone was on fire! Did you not see the bodies? The huts, burned to the ground!"

"I..." he began, but was interrupted once more by one of the earlier voices.

"Brother?"

Kohaku's head whipped around to regard the female in the doorway, and Rin's eyes followed - and then widened to the size of dinner plates.

She remembered this woman, too. It had been so long ago, almost another life, but she remembered her. She was a member of the group that Sesshoumaru-sama's brother (half, as he liked to point out) led. Sesshoumaru-sama never talked about 'that mutt' much, save what she heard when they fought one another. Why they did so had confused her for quite some time. After all, if he was all the family that her guardian had, shouldn't they be close? Family was hard to come by, or so Rin learned. It was precious and had to be kept close, for you never knew when you just might be alone again.. like she was now. The pit of her stomach dropped and she felt like crying again.

"So she is awake." Sango, for that was her name, approached more closely. At her heels was a young boy, just a few years younger than Rin had been when she came upon Sesshoumaru all those seasons ago. He clung to her plain kimono with one small, pudgy hand that was wrapped with a beige bandage. He still hadn't lost the baby fat in his cheeks, and his opposite hand was busily employed with his mouth as he sucked his thumb.

Rin raised her focus to Sango's face for the first time now that she was closer, and was shocked to what she found there.

There was a definite sadness, a permanent quality that now assaulted the woman's visage. The demon exterminator had to be rapidly approaching thirty years of age, but she appeared to be a woman of forty or so. Deep penumbras lurked beneath each eyelid, and the crow's feet deepened their hue. Creases in the corner of each eye were like slight scars on either side of her face, but the real scars were embedded on the left side of her face and in her soul. Rin stared at this side of her face for a moment, and then did an eye slide when she realized Sango had caught her staring. Before she caught herself, she had a second look, but more quickly.

Sango sighed.

It was clear the woman was tired, and from her stooped posture one could say she was even somewhat broken. There was only one thing that could do that to a person - she had lost something important to her and it had cost her dearly. Kami, she was still paying for it now.

"She was asking where we found her." It was Kohaku now, quietly cutting through the awkward stillness as if slicing a slab of butter with a knife.

"Did you tell her it was Kaede's old village?"

"No. Do you think she knows who that is?"

"Doubtful."

"She mentioned a fire..."

Sango's wary expression dropped to something bordering anguish.

"Well..."

She didn't make it much further. Rin, tired of being ignored, squeezed her input between the two. "Why are you talking like I am not here?" She glared to a degree, swallowing her fear and holding her tears at bay - for now.

Sango slid her eyes to the teenager, and shook her head slowly. "I apologize, I did not mean to leave you out. How are you feeling?" A mask had covered the woman's previous expression, and now left her appearing calm.

Rin rubbed the back of her head, forgetting the former topic for now. She did not remember someone named Kaede, and could care less at that point that they had known someone from that place. They had all died, anyways. Everyone but her. Did Sesshoumaru-sama...? _No_. Never. Impossible.

"My head hurts a little," Rin managed to croak.

"You should rest, yet. You will not get far in your state and we shall explain all we know to you later."

"I know you..."

"Yes, I know. I know you too." Sango smiled slightly, but the effect did not reach her eyes - those world weary eyes.

"Where are the rest of your friends?"

Sango turned then, presenting her back to the girl. "Like I said, you should rest." She walked away then, her hand on the back of the little boy's head as she led him away from the room. He glanced back at her once, and for a brief second in time she recalled another of Sango's group in his features - but that had been long ago and she wasn't sure of anything anymore.

The demon exterminator's outright refusal to answer her last quest notwithstanding, Rin turned her attention to Kohaku. "Did I say something...?"

Kohaku just shook his head, cleared his throat, and forced a smile for her benefit. "We will talk later. My older sister is right, you should get some more rest."

"But.. I cannot rest without knowing where Sesshoumaru-sama is!"

The young man seemed to be struggling with himself not to scowl. "Please, just rest for now. We will find him later, I promise." He stood, and then gave her an encouraging smile before turning for the shoji screen.

As he left, Rin closed her eyes and fell back against the mat. She was frightened again, frightened of the unknown without one tall, silent and intimidating youkai at her side. She wanted to be with him more than ever, but realized now that she would have to wait - wait until she was with him again and the entire ordeal was over.

She fell asleep with a frown on her face as she once more saw a giant white dog eating Chiyo in her mind's eye.

* * *

_**Tokyo, Present**_

* * *

The bell on the door of a small antiquities shop jangled one last time as the shopkeeper locked up for the night. The woman fought with the old key for a moment, and then stared without emotion into the darkened storefront. Behind her, a streetlight cast an eerie light upon its surroundings and illuminated her shadowy reflection in the glass of the shop. She could see her dark hair, white blouse and navy suit pants in the window, but all else was lacking detail. The metal bars placed between herself and the glass cast vertical stripes across her faded figure, making it appear as if she was imprisoned. The items in the shop beyond were a plethora of various artifacts from a bygone age. They cluttered the display window and shelves, dusty with disuse and random in placement. 

The shopkeeper's business was in a run-down part of town, although crime was not nearly as bad as in other sections of Tokyo. There was the occasional robbery, petty pocket theivery and vandalism, but homicides were down to one or two a year in that area. During business hours, it was not unusual to hear a car alarm or the wail of sirens as the police or other emergency vehicle sped by. The woman would have liked to relocate her shop, but for now it was all she could affoard. Getting the antiques to stock her store was never a problem; getting the kind of customers into that section of downtown who were interested in buying such things was.

With a small sigh, the woman adjusted the heavy purse on her shoulder and approached the old Hyundai parked a block up the street. It was a battered thing, about a decade old, but it was her first car and it still ran effeciently. Better yet, only one would-be car jacker had attempted to unlock it that past April when she had forgotten her purse in the passenger-side seat. She was on a mission that day to grab some papers she had accidently left behind at the shop, and only stepped inside a second before returning to see him using the unwound wire of a clotheshanger through the small crack in the window of the passenger-side door. The moment she had flourished her stun gun was the moment he had dropped the wire, turned around with fearful eyes, and raced up the street. She stood there for a march of minutes, staring at the wire now laying on the dirty concrete and wondering what the world had come to. He had been no more than fifteen, that boy.

Fifteen.

She shook her head; no point in remembering that stuff. It was useless, really. She had already been through all the who's, what's, why's and how's - and still couldn't come to a suitable answer. Quietly, she got into the car and turned on the headlights before slowly pulling away from the curb. God, it had gotten dark fast. She often lost track of time, moreso lately. Business was never doing well, but it was certainly taking a turn for the worst lately. She had bills to pay, a family to take care of and she often found herself cutting too many corners to make ends meet. She pondered digging her old bike out of the accumulated junk at home and using that to get to work instead of the car, but then dropped the thought entirely a second or two later. For one, work was too far away for biking, and two... well, it wouldn't be seemly for her to bike to work on a young girl's bike, anyways. Did the tires even have air anymore? It had been years...

'No. Don't think of that. Of _them_. Of **_him_**.'

The drive home was uneventful, and as she pulled up to a dark residential area and one house in particular, a light came on in the upper window. The light then spilled below onto the ground floor and an older woman's silhouette was outlined in the bright glow of flourescent lights.

"Hi, mom." The shopkeeper approached an open doorway and the elder female that stood within it. She had streaks of gray in her short, black hair. Laughlines pulled back to reveal a welcoming smile as she ushered her daughter inside.

"Where were you? I had dinner made hours ago. Did you work late again?"

"Yeah. I had some calculations to do for the lease."

The woman's mother could tell from the tone of voice that her daughter used that all was not well. Her head dipped a little, but she maintained her sunny smile.

"Maybe tomorrow will be better. Come inside, Kagome."

They did.

* * *

A/N: Haha, bet you didn't see that coming... or maybe you did.. whatever. Anyways, fun chapter. R&R, as always! Hope you liked it. :) 


	9. Years Gone By

**I Was Invincible - Chapter 7**

_"...And when you're looking back to now  
All the years gone by  
Will there be something that you say  
That you should have done right  
In your life."_

- **_Ten Years Time_**, Gabrielle

_**Tokyo, Present**_

* * *

As Mama Higurashi finally retired for the night, Kagome was downstairs finishing her dinner. It was cooled yakitori, not that she minded. After retrieving the remainder of the grilled chicken from the stove and reheating it in the microwave, it was edible enough. There wasn't much left, which her mother had profusely apologized for. She explained that although she herself did not have much of a serving, Souta was a growing boy and had to be admonished for taking a sizeable portion earlier. Now in high school, Kagome's brother was a popular player on the basketball team. He was more often out doing things with friends rather than at home, much to her mother's chagrin. In fact, he had dashed off just after supper to some unknown destination with his teammates with only an abrupt, "Later, mom!" for a farewell.

He reminded Kagome of herself at that age, only she was darting off down a magical cistern in the wellhouse to battle demons in a bygone era with a demon exterminator, fox kitsune, perverted monk, fire cat and one oft-grumpy hanyou.

Her throat tightened, and she cleared it. _'You think about it too much, still. He's gone.'_

It had been eight years. Eight long, painful years. He disappeared one day, the day that Kaede's village burned to the ground due to the fire set by the army of Oda Nobunaga, a warlord. She had come late, upset with him earlier over trivial things.

It had cost her.

Shippo, Kiara, and Inuyasha had vanished. Miroku and Sango were at a loss to their location, and they were so swept up in relocating the survivors of Kaede's village that they hadn't much time at that point to search for their lost party. It was odd enough that the ones missing had youkai lineage in the first place, but the horror of that day was so fresh that the thought never really occurred to her until later on. Tremendous atrocities were committed that day, and she was too late to stop it.

_'Be reasonable. You wouldn't have been able to stop it had you wanted to.'_

Her shoulders slumped and she stared at the crumbs of cold chicken on her plate.

_'I could have at least said goodbye...'_

She would not cry, not again. She had cried every night the first month, and then intermittantly for the year following that. It had made her numb, and careless. Her ailing grades had slipped even more, and she nearly failed high school. College had been out of the question with her marks, so instead she opened a small antiques shop. After all, Naraku hadn't been defeated yet. She could still travel through the well, which she still did to collect items for her shop and to visit with Sango, Kohaku and Konda.

Konda. Kagome smiled slightly, almost wistfully. He was such a strong boy, and he took after his father in more than looks. His personality and the way he acted around the opposite sex was already manifesting itself to reflect Miroku.

Miroku had died of his curse less than a year ago. He had married Sango not long after the disappearance of Inuyasha, Kiara and Shippo. Something about the urgency of the wedding made Kagome see that the couple realized just how short their time together could be. When the surviving villagers had settled an area a few days west of their original settlement, they had the ceremony. It was meant to be joyous, but with all that was lost it was difficult to even keep a small smile. What was supposed to be a wedding was also a funeral, in a way. Konda came not soon after. Although he was a blessing to his parents, he carried the curse of the wind tunnel. It was small when he was a newborn, held in Sango's trembling arms the day he came into the world. A small dot on his right palm, no bigger than a speck of dust marked him as cursed. It widened every so slightly with every year he took on, and it halted the desire in both parents to have another child carry the same affliction.

Years down the road, Konda's father died horribly. In his final months, Sango would even refuse to allow Konda to see his father. Kagome had seen Miroku in his final hours, with Sango clutching his head to her chest while her body was wracked with sobs.

The void in his palm had eaten its way up his arm, and over his shoulder. They kept it bandaged, but Miroku was in pain every second of the last year of his life. He compared it once with being chewed slowly by a ravenous but patience wolf - a predator that knew it had all the time in the world to consume you. In truth, it appeared to be a more disgusting variant of leprosy. When his hand had disintegrated, his forearm was next. His elbow followed, then his bicep, and then his shoulder blade. It was nerve-wracking for both Kagome and his wife, unable to do anything. Soon the black hole ate its way down into his chest cavity and destroyed his heart.

Kagome still remembered it clearly. She had helped a distraught Sango stand up, even as Miroku's eyes fluttered shut and his intact hand slipped away from Sango's. His last breath was a rattle in his chest, more a wheeze, and then there was the distinct sound of air exiting from another area of his body. Kagome assumed that the void had punctured part of his right lung, and therefore air was escaping there too.

She led Sango outside. She would never forget when the grieving woman lost the glaze of shock that stained her face before dropping to her knees in the grass. Her hands fisted in her hair, knuckles bleeding away to nothing but white before she screamed.

The screaming didn't end until Sango was coughing and gagging to breathe, only to attempt to scream again. Kagome was weeping for the both of them, unable to comfort Sango when she herself could find none. The loss of Shippo, Kiara, and especially Inuyasha was already a blow she lived with day to day, but this was too much.

They had lost too much.

Thankfully, Kohaku had taken Konda out to hunt for supper that afternoon. Sango's brother had been a point of stability for her now that Naraku seemed oblivious of his existence. Well, oblivious wasn't quite the right word, but it had been a long time since Naraku had controlled Kohaku. Kagome and Sango even had the false hope that the abomination known as Naraku had forgotten about him. When one lost hope in some aspects of life, they attached them to others. Kohaku knew that he had to take Konda away that morning, or so Kagome quietly informed him. It distracted the boy and kept him from hearing his mother's cries. Kagome hadn't believed that Miroku had much longer - she had been right.

Kagome swallowed, and tapped her chopsticks against her mother's porcelin dinner plate. The sound was high-pitched and nearly sublime in the empty kitchen. Under the glare of the overhead lights, Kagome was haunted by one moment in particular when Sango stopped wailing.

Her head tipped back to the heavens, face streaming with tiny rivers of unstoppable tears, Sango shrieked.

_**"NARAKU!"**_

Kagome blinked, and shook her head to clear it. Standing, she went to the sink to clean her plate. As her hands worked mechanically to turn on the water valves, she dispassionately began applying dish detergent to the running water. Her body went through the motions, but her mind was not in the present.

Her grandfather had died of a heart attack two years ago, but somehow his death and the time the Higurashis had spent in the hospital paled in comparison to how Miroku had died and the wretchedness of it all.

She shut off the water, shook the plate and utensils, and set them on a rack to air dry. Her bloodshot pupils stared out the kitchen window at the inklike silhouette of the well house across the yard. Her thoughts drifted again, as they did so often those days.

_'I should really pay Sango another visit. It's been almost a month and a half since last time.'_

It wasn't that she didn't enjoy her visits with Sango, it was just that the Sengoku Jidai held too many reminders. Memories of Inuyasha, of happier times. Sometimes she couldn't believe that it had turned out this way. Stories were supposed to have happy endings, right? Then why, oh why, was the one person she had grown to love dead? They had never found a body, or any bodies for that matter, but eight years _had_ gone by without a trace of anyone. Eventually, cold fact settled in and she had no choice but to move on. She had dated Hojo a few years after his disappearance, but that relationship had been doomed from the start. She could never see Hojo the way she had seen Inuyasha, and her heart belonged to none but him. She had come to the conclusion after her somber breakup with Hojo that she would always be alone, always wishing for him.

A short, bitter laugh escaped her lips. She was such a fool.

_'Damn you, look at you... you've had your life destroyed. No, two lives. You lost the one you could have had with Inuyasha in the past when you lost him, and the one you have here has no future. You're empty, and used up.'_

She wanted to laugh again, perhaps to signal to herself that this truth was in some way funny. In the end, she couldn't convince herself that it was. Any further crow of condemnation died in her throat. Pivoting on her foot, she turned to go upstairs.

_'Hear that, Inuyasha? I'm the walking dead, and you really are dead.'_

A pause.

_'I think you got the better end of the deal.'_

* * *

_**Sengoku Jidai**_

* * *

He was reaching for her, arms extended and claws glinting in the limbo-light of her.. where was she? Why was Sesshoumaru-sama reaching for her? She attempted to see his face, but she apparently had no corporeal form and neither did he. There were only those arms - wait, didn't he only have one? She could swear she remembered he only had...

Rin woke up.

Sitting up ramrod straight, her eyes protested the sudden wide-eyed stare she forced them into. The late-morning sun had nearly crested to a pinnacle to announce the arrival of noon, and she had slept like a log. Well, save for the dreams that is.

_'No, nightmares. I miss you, Sesshoumaru-sama. Where are you?' _

He had been there in her mind, swirling there the entire time she slept like an elusive phantasm. She couldn't reach him, no matter how hard she tried. If he reached, she found herself unable to go to him. If she reached, he fluttered silently beyond her grasp like a nervous hummingbird.

Which was even the more strange, since her guardian did _not_ flutter.

As her eyes adjusted, she felt the familiar distress of yesterday setting in. Remembering her experience from yesterday, she practiced more caution in extracting herself from the mats. Standing slowly, she felt instant relief when all the blood in her body stayed down and didn't rush at once to her head. So far, so good.

Taking a timid step forward, she grimaced and listened for sound. Nothing. Her body hadn't completely lost the discomfort it had aquired from yesterday, but it wasn't unbearable.

Another step.

Now she heard them. Muffled though they were, she could hear them beyond the shoji screen. They were talking about her.

"Should I bring her some food?"

"It would be for the best. She is likely to be hungry." It was Sango, and the first baritone belonged to Kohaku. It seemed so long ago when she had first sighted him, but now she could grudgingly admit that he had become handsome. Not nearly as handsome as Sesshoumaru-sama was, but...

Wait.

Where did _that_ thought come from? She did not.. she could not...

Rin made a face, disappointed with herself. She had no right to have these inappropriate thoughts about him. Sesshoumaru-sama was her guardian, her protecter! Or... was he? The events of yesterday had her second guessing herself, which she despised. The past few years had brought with it a change in the structure of her body and her mind. She thought differently now, even though she was still much the same girl inside. Still, the inner turmoil she felt now floundered about her and wracked her insides with indecision. She hated not knowing.

"Awake, I see. Feeling better?"

The shoji screen had slid aside while she was having her inner conflict with herself. She was almost nose-to-nose with Kohaku before she jerked back and drew herself up to her full height.

"Y-yes," she stammered, forcing down a blush at the instant proximity and the fact that she had been caught unaware.

Kohaku didn't seem to take notice, and if he did he made no point to comment on it. Stepping aside, he made a flourish with one hand and ushered her into the adjoining room. "Come in, then. My sister just made something."

"T-Thank you."

"No need to be nervous." He gave her a disarming smile meant to calm her nerves, but it only frazzled them further.

"I'm.. I'm not.. nervous."

He just continued smiling.

Rin fully flushed and breezed past him, where she saw Sango kneeling upon the floor next a plain kotatsu table that supported saucers and rice bowls. When Rin knelt beside her and gave her a troubled look, Sango merely offered her some rice and chopsticks. "Eat. You probably have not had anything in awhile."

Gratefully, Rin accepted the dish and barely remembered her manners as she devoured the contents. In the meantime, Kohaku had settled beside his sister. Through the screen that led outside, the sounds of a boy at play could be heard. Rin allowed herself to take in this room. It was larger than the one she had occupied, and was obviously the living and dining space. Shelves held assorted weapons on one wall, and the opposite was completely cluttered with bowls of various sizes and shapes. Some tatami mats were next to the shoji screen that led outside, and even more intricate ones ringed the kotatsu table beneath their knees. The ceiling was low, and the roofop could be seen through the rafters.

It was a modest dwelling for a commoner, nice even. It seemed more cozy to Rin than the shiro ever did, and therefore it had its charms.

Still, the unease in her soul would not allow her to enjoy her surroundings or her rice. She ate quickly, and finished with a hasty 'arigotou'.

As she stood, Sango took ahold of her tattered yukata while holding her rice bowl in her freehand. "Would you like to take a bath in the village onsen? I think I have some yukatas that would fit you as well."

Rin drifted into a kneeling crouch again. She realized that two pairs of worried eyes were now set upon her.

"I.. that would be nice. I just.. I need to find.."

"We know. We also need to speak to you about that, but now is not the time. Get cleaned up first, and then we shall talk." Sango suddenly stood, disappeared into the sleeping chamber that Rin had awoken in, and reappeared a minute or two later. Holding a neatly folded summer yukata in her upturned palms, she offered it to the teenager.

"Take this. I used to wear it when I was younger."

"Are.. are you sure?" Questioning brown eyes met the darker ones of Sango.

"I am."

"Thank you, again. You are very kind."

"You are welcome. Kohaku will show you the way to the hot springs."

"Arigotou."

That said, Rin turned just in time to see Kohaku offer his arm to her. She did not take it, and instead rubuked his offer with a slight shake of her head. Nodding with an understanding expression, he led her outside. Bathed in sunshine now, she blinked rapidly and glanced around.

_'Sesshoumaru-sama, did you forget Rin?'_

* * *

A/N: There's Chapter 9. Hope it clears up a few things. As always, R&R! How long will this story be? Looooong, so hold on. I'll reveal things chapter by chapter, and not before. If things in one chapter don't make sense, count on cluing in one or two chapters down the line. The big questions won't be answered until the end of the story, of course, so no help there! 


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